


Body Language

by Caladenia



Series: The Early Days [2]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Friendship, Very early days - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 18:23:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11213673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caladenia/pseuds/Caladenia
Summary: A few weeks in his new position, Chakotay is still finding out what Captain Janeway expects from her First Officer. Very fluffy.





	Body Language

**Author's Note:**

> Another of my early works, posted on FFN and lightly re-edited. Un-betaed.

* * *

  _She is already taking her uniform jumper off, in a hurry to get the release she is after. I have to help with the sleeves and soon she’s only got the Starfleet regulation undershirt on her back._

 What was I meant to do? She was fidgeting.

I was still learning how to read my captain’s body language and that morning I simply couldn’t make out what was the problem. There was nothing on long range sensors and the shift would have been uneventful if it had not been for that fidgeting of hers.

It was not obvious of course. There was no foot tapping or glaring impatience at the stars streaming by. Her gaze was focused on the screen, her orders to the bridge crew precise as usual.

At first I just noticed how her hand tightened on the arm rest closer to me. Soon she was moving her upper back in a small circular motion against her seat. That got my attention. I’ve never served before under a captain with such an interesting backside. 

Back, Chakotay. Her back.

 

_“Harder, please.”_

_“There?”_

_“Ah, yes. Perfect. Don’t stop, please.”_

 

I thought that maybe I should ask what her problem was, if only for the crew’s sake. A good First Officer should think of the crew’s effectiveness.

Before I could find the words, she stilled for a while. Whatever she’d been doing seemed to have worked.

 

_I move my fingers a tad quicker._

_“Oh, Chakotay…”_

 

I thought that maybe she would prefer to be left alone. She liked to deconstruct the events which had befell us so far, to better plan our next encounter with what the Delta Quadrant threw at us with infallible regularity. There was bound to be more bloody and ship-shattering events waiting for us on our journey home. A good First Officer should let his captain do what she does best.

Then it started again.

She was definitely not herself. In the few weeks we’d been working together, I had seen her happy, tired, hurt, drained, angry, thoughtful, but never fidgeting. That morning, she was doing something that was throwing me off and the crew on the bridge was beginning to notice too.

 

_Her voice has dropped an octave. I don’t think she knows what that’s doing to my self-control._

  

I pondered how to resolve what was becoming my problem and missed what Paris said to her, facing us from the helm. There was often a bit of good-natured banter between those two. He flirted with impudence at times but I’d learnt to keep my counsel to myself. She could handle Paris better than I.

The smile on his face disappeared when she nodded absently without replying. As he turned back to his console, he gave me a quick look, daring me to get to the bottom of whatever was distracting the Captain before he would.

It is never good to ignore the ship’s head gambler. Given Paris’ single-minded focus on increasing his winnings, I thought it might be beneficial to slow down the cogs I could see turning very rapidly in his brain. A good First Officer should limit the ship’s scuttlebutt, especially when his captain’s behaviour was one of the main focus of the crew-wide bets.

 

_Arms clenched on the edge of the desk, she arches her back, pushing against me. All I can see is the white nape of her neck, the small hairs under her bun bracing themselves against my breath._

 

I needed more information, and fast. Maybe some spying was called for. Well, not spying. That would be getting down to Paris’ level. What do you call a First Officer who is going through his PADD to see what his captain has been up to?

Concerned. I was concerned. Not spying.

We were going through a calm region of space for a change and most of the crew had had the day off so the holodecks had been in great demand. The Sandrine scenario had been running for most of the day and many crew members made use of it, while Harry and Ayala had booked a fencing program. Good to know the two crews were spending some of their free time together, but that was not what I was after. Ah. Captain Janeway, 1600, rock climbing simulation.

Grade 5.10. Not bad. She’s manifestly not a beginner. But she had terminated the hologram program well before the end of the booking. Strange.

I put the PADD back on the seat armrest and plunged in.

“Did you enjoy your holodeck time yesterday?” I asked, tilting my head towards her. A perfectly innocent query.

 

_It takes all my willpower not to sink my mouth into the ivory curve, there and then._

 

Paris’ hands stopped moving, hovering a hairbreadth off his console. Harry let out a small sigh. There was no sound coming from Tuvok’s station, but I could almost feel his ears twitching ever so slightly.

The Captain turned towards me and frowned as if I had just materialised from deep space instead of having sat beside her for the best part of the Alpha shift. While the fidgeting had momentarily halted, I noticed a faint redness on the underside of her jaw and she was careful not to lean on her left arm. That’s when I really became worried.

“Is everything all right, Captain?” I added in a low voice.

 

_I close my eyes, letting my fingers bring bliss and relief to the flesh underneath._

 

Once, B’Elanna had told me that in the rare occasions I had looked at her the same way, she had had to fight the impulse to rip her clothes off while opening her soul bare. Something to do with my empathic dark eyes and a broody tattoo, she’d said. After that revelation, I had toned down the concerned stare but I stepped it up in this instance. Something was wrong with the Captain and I needed to know what. I thought the worst that could happen was that she would give me a dressing down. A good First Officer should catch anything his captain wants to toss at him, figuratively or otherwise.

Her blue eyes refocused slowly from my eyes to around my chin.

“In my ready room. Now.” She bolted from her chair and was gone in two seconds.

“Tuvok, you’ve got the bridge.” I stood, my hands pulling down my uniform top in an attempt to act casual. Tom gave me a better-you-than-me smirk. I returned the bad attitude with what I thought was a good impression of the Captain’s death glare before the ready room door opened to let me through.

“Commander, I need you to do something for me.”

That’s when she started to take her clothes off and asked me to use my fingers on her. A back itch can be a pain to reach when a certain Captain has over-estimated her athletic capabilities, and decided not to go and see the Doctor for a pulled shoulder.

A good First Officer must do what his captain orders. Seska would have sniggered watching me used as a scratching post, and I could almost guess at B’Elanna’s horrified look at the Maquis Mauler rubbing the back of a Starfleet. I was sure my ancestors were also muttering something about old colonial practices.

Only God knew what Paris would have made of the situation.

“Perfect,” she purred, and I smiled.

There were layers to the Captain that I had not glimpsed yet, but duplicity towards a member of her crew was not one of them. What I was doing right then was a trivial thing indeed and I was happy to oblige her.

As my fingers continued to roam her back, I reflected on how the circumstances we had found ourselves thrown into had upended our positions from sworn enemies to command team. Me, the Maquis renegade turned Starfleet Officer. Her, the model Captain, lost seventy thousand light years from Federation space. No doubt our relationship would continue to deepen with time as we made our way home.

I was now massaging the knots at the base of Kathryn’s neck. A good First Officer must always be ready to grasp new opportunities with both hands.

* * *

 

 


End file.
